Mad Men to Torture Viewers with Two Abbreviated Final Seasons Rather Than a Full One

Just when we thought that AMC could not possibly torture its viewers anymore—see: Breaking Bad’s examination of baby abduction, familial knife fights, and desert homicides last Sunday—the network finds a new way to torture its audience today. Rather than air the final installment of Mad Men in one civilized full season this spring, AMC has announced that it will break up Season Seven into two mini-seasons. All the better to taunt viewers with Don Draper’s continued booze-soaked descent into self-loathing and, presumably, to get cast and crew—who negotiate on a per-season basis, Vulture points out—more money. (Mad Men’s awards cabinet will also benefit from another Emmy season and hopefully enough Emmy campaigning to finally convince voters that Jon Hamm is not too handsome to be awarded for his acting ability.)

Less optimistically, the series’s finale tease means that, as Sylvia was to Don last season, we are the hotel-trapped mistress in AMC’s fcked-up Mad Men* mind game. Sure, the network will bring us Saks lingerie (and Don Draper promos) when it stops by to visit us at the Sherry-Netherland. (Can’t we at least keep a book to entertain us?!) But in between those all-too-brief visits from Don, we are just going to have to wait.